New concert arena for Canberra?

Canberra could get a 7,000-seat concerts and indoor sports arena, ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr told the Legislative Assembly.

This is one of the options suggested by the ACT Government, according to The Canberra Times.

This would mean that earlier plans for a $350 million state-of-the-art Civic stadium on the edge of Lake Burley Griffin by 2020 would be scrapped.

The Minister said that the smaller arena option in Civic would help Canberra attract concerts and host indoor sports.

"It [building an small indoor arena] would also have the advantage of being able to comfortably accommodated on the site without the need to radically shift the alignment of the network of roads around it," he said.

"It could meet another need in the city. It’s been observed by many that we miss out on a large range of live music because we lack an indoor venue with a capacity of more than 4,000 for a concert.”

The future of these plans depends on current talks that the Government is holding with the Australian Sports Commission to buy Canberra Stadium, the AIS Arena and the AIS pool.

In April this year the Commission changed the rent for Canberra Stadium in Bruce from a peppercorn lease of $1 to $350,000 per year..

This is to be paid by the government, so it makes sense for it to buy the three assets “for the right price”, according to Chief Minister Barr.

If the deal is struck, the Government has the choice of bulldozing Canberra Stadium and turning the land into housing or apartments, or invest in a major badly-needed upgrade of the stands and facilities of the stadium.

The 25,000-seat Canberra Stadium, which opened in 1977 for the Pacific Conference Games, is also known as GIO Stadium and Bruce Stadium.